Salvador Illa faces real trouble the moment he reaches the Generalitat’s office, should he win the investiture and enter the government. When Roosevelt died, Vice President Harry Truman went to the White House and asked the widow Leonor Roosevelt if there was anything he could do for her. Her reply: there is nothing you can do for me, because now the trouble lies with you. Illa has a track record, yet governing with a fragile majority is uncharted territory. There are no guarantees that investiture agreements will endure. The European elections are already heating up the political atmosphere.
La long a stage of governance breakdown during the era of the procés leaves many issues unresolved. Some are postponed management tasks; others demand actions with significant political and symbolic impact. Take the language immersion policy, for example. There are reasons to suspect evolving public opinion on this matter. Another focal point is TV3, gradually turning into a political instrument of the procés, losing audience and urgently needing true bilingual pluralism and representation.
With the dissolution of the Christian democratic Unió Democràtica, Ramon Espadaler joined PSC as Units per Avançar. Santi Vila, formerly convergent, joined the Barcelona leadership team. They act as a counterweight to PSC figures who moved to ERC, the brother of Pasqual Maragall, or Girona’s former mayor. Yet Illa does not have room for a socio-convergent reedition, a path that feels outdated.
On the contrary, even if Puigdemont does not block Illa’s presidency by withholding his party’s parliamentary votes, there will be ploys and destabilizing gestures. ERC, a parliamentary ally of Sanchez, tends to take a more accommodating stance than Puigdemont. It is obvious that the memory of the tripartites is not a blessing, and the hope for a second Estatut that resolves nothing only backfired rather than advanced the cause.
Opposition space includes the fifteen seats held by the PP after a term with three administrations. This presents a unique opportunity because, unlike past moments when the national government needed Convergència for support, Núñez Feijóo now faces no such conditions. He could craft a coherent, persuasive strategy across all levels in Catalonia.
The European elections will pass, but the damage left by the procés remains visible with Illa in the Generalitat and likely shaped by the heirs of the October 2017 events. In other words, by the parliamentary allies of a Sanchez government that cannot fully control the Sumar coalition partner.
The real test for Illa will be the handling of language policy and TV3. If Zapatero indeed facilitates talks with Junts and ERC, Illa’s margin will not be secure. The parliamentary makeup of the Catalan chamber will reveal whether Illa leans toward stability or simply serves the ongoing Sánchez administration.
In the end, the political landscape will be judged by practical leadership choices, not rhetoric. The coming months will show whether Illa can balance ideological pressures with the daily duties of governance and whether the agreements in the investiture prove durable enough to weather shifting political winds.